Once and Future
by Awdures
Summary: Transported to the far past, Sonic was surprised to meet Knuckles there. But how will Knuckles himself react to this information? Set after the end of the Fleetway comic series


**I tend to feel Sonic stories ought to have a 'version of reality' explanation attached to them, there's so many variations of canon. So, for the record, this is set in the Fleetway comic universe, shortly after the end of the series.**

**For those unfamiliar with the series, a very brief summary of the background to the story as it applies to this fic:**

**A creature called Chaos was attempting to absorb the Chaos Emeralds on the Floating Island, Knuckles was unable to stop him from reaching the Emeralds and was forced to jettison them, causing the Island to crash into the sea. Knuckles,overcome withguilt, wanted to go down with it, but Amy Rose knocked him out and they left with Tails in his biplane. In the meantime Sonic had been transported to the distant past where and encountered Knuckle's ancestors, and--much to his surprise--Knuckles himself. He discovers that the creature Chaos was originally one of the Drakon, an invading alien race who Sonic had encountered once before. Chaos is defeated in that time, though the war with the Drakon continues, and Sonic arrives back to defeat the present day version of Chaos. In the past Knuckles is left wondering how he can have survived into the future.**

**This story picks up during the ensuing Drakon war 8000 in Mobius' past and cuts between past and present.**

* * *

Knuckles' group burst into the dugout almost falling over themselves in relief at being back more or less unscathed. Dusty, bloodied, but, for now, triumphant. Still rehashing the attack among themselves they dispersed, to eat, or sleep or in some cases to get patched up. 

Knuckles watched them go and only then sat down, grateful simply to be off his feet at long last.

"Do you want me to look at that?"

He startled, hand tightening automatically on the weapon he still held. He'd been so tired he hadn't heard Tikal approach. He looked down at the gash on his arm. It had only started hurting since he'd sat down and he had no idea at which point in the battle he'd received it.

"Thank you."

He watched her as she fetched water and dabbed awkwardly at it. It would take forever to clean at this rate. She was too afraid of hurting him. Too unused to seeing injury of any kind, though there'd been plenty lately.

Eventually Tikal finished cleaning the injury and bound it securely. She didn't lack for determination and willingness in any case. Her or her father. Knuckles had tried to insist that the dugout was too dangerous for them, but Pochacamac had insisted that the nowhere could be safer than in the headquarters of the city's most famed fighters.

Knuckles could recognise flattery when he saw it, but had to admit he didn't have any better ideas. Right from the start the city had been in the front line.

If you could even call it a front line when there were no definite boundaries to the fighting. When the enemy arrived from the sky, what could you do to maintain a perimeter? Still, it seemed there ought to be a safer place than this for the seer and his daughter.

At least this time they'd pushed the Drakon back far enough that they could all sleep tonight without the sound of blasting.

He wasn't sleepy though. Tired, yes, but he had too much to think about to let with mind wind down into sleep. The blue hedgehog from the future foremost among them. Or more to the point, the knowledge he'd had. The fact that he'd known Knuckles there. So many thousands of years from now.

"Tikal?"

She looked up from tying off the bandage and Knuckles hesitated. It was bad luck to ask a seer about what they saw. You risked finding out something you didn't want to know. .

"When you fetched the hedgehog, Sonic..." Knuckles faltered for a moment, but pressed on. "Did you see... Me?"

She lowered her head and stared at her handiwork, as wary of giving the information as he was of receiving it.

"I saw an echidna," she allowed.

"Sonic said I didn't remember any of this, in his time. How could I forget my whole life, Tikal?"

"I don't know."

"Is that the truth or is the one of the 'it's better if you don't worry about it' lines that you seer types seem to practise?" Knuckles tried to make her meet his eyes. "Sonic recognised me. He was surprised to see me here but he wasn't surprised at my appearance. Not at my age. Whatever happens to me it happens soon. Don't I have a right--"

"To know your own future?" She did meet his eyes then. "No, Knuckles. No one has a right to know that."

"But--"

Tikal raised her hand to stop him.

"Did you fight differently today because you knew you survived in order for Sonic to meet you in the future?"

Knuckles frowned. "Well... No. I didn't think of that."

"Exactly. If you had, and thought you were somehow invincible, it's very likely that you'd have got yourself killed."

"But--" Knuckles interjected again and was stopped this time by the entrance of one of his captains.

"What is it, Inti?"

"Sorry to interrupt," He nodded apology to Tikal, "But it's the Drakon we pushed back." His words were those of someone bringing bad news, but his eyes shone with challenge. "They're not staying pushed back."

Knuckles stood immediately, and pushed his doubts to the back of his mind.

"Gather the others then. Let's go."

* * *

"Well?" Knuckles demanded. 

Sonic rolled his eyes. Knuckles was all but bouncing, stood at Porker's shoulder. Sonic wasn't exactly renowned for his patience himself, but right now he felt like the very model of laid-back, compared to Knuckles.

"Is this the place?" Knuckles asked again.

Porker nodded. "I think so. This is where the best plot I can get for where the Island went down." He pointed to a chart he had spread out and marked but Knuckles brushed his hand aside.

"I don't care about charts. Is it there or not?"

Porker gaped at him, startled by this brusqueness, and Sonic stepped forward.

"Back off, Knuckles. Everyone's doing the best they can."

Instead of answering, Knuckles glared at him and stalked to the far end of the boat to peer down at the water. Knuckles without a retort to make was worrying enough in itself and Sonic stared after him with a frown.

"I think I'll go and help Amy set up the sounding equipment," Porker said quietly.

Sonic nodded, watching as Knuckles paced three steps back and forth across the narrow stern of the fishing boat they'd commandeered.

"He's just upset about the Island," Tails said from behind Sonic. Sonic looked at him. Tails had seen first-hand the aftermath of Knuckles' decision to jettison the Emeralds and allow the Island to crash. It was from him Sonic had learned how Amy had had to knock Knuckles out to prevent him from abandoning his own life to the sea, along with the Island. "He'll be better once we get the Emeralds back where they belong and raise it up again."

"If there's anything left to raise," Sonic muttered. He was sharply reminded of Tikal's question to him. _Tell me, Sonic--What becomes of the echidna race?_ He found he was almost grateful he hadn't had the time to tell her, and wondered how much she and her father had found out. Had they known, sending Knuckles here, what they were sending him to?

Sonic shook himself out of that unhappy line of though, but Tails always had had a knack for guessing what he was thinking and now asked, "What was he like--Knuckles I mean--when you met him in the past?"

Sonic thought about it. Apart from the get-up he hadn't seemed that different. Still the bluntly-spoken fighter, quick to make a sarcastic remark. The difference was more indefinable. Not more confident, Knuckles had never lacked for that, but more relaxed in his confidence. Comfortable with the people around in him in a way that he'd never been since Sonic had known him. His open curiosity and interest in Sonic's story was a sharp contrast to the outright suspicion he'd met with the first time he'd landed on the Floating Island.

"Have you told him about it?" Tails asked.

"No." He'd meant to. But somehow every opportunity had ended up being sidetracked by a row. Or he'd been unable to track him down in the first place. "There doesn't seem to have been a good time."

When _was_ a good time to explain to someone that you knew more about their life than they remembered themselves? Especially given the nature of it.

"The sonar confirms there's something down there!" Porker suddenly shouted from the cabin.

Knuckles blew past Sonic and Tails at a run, and they followed.

Sonic was prepared to take Porker's and Amy's word for it that the green blobs on the screen meant what they said they meant. They looked to him like someone had just spilled something lurid on the console.

"I'm going down there." Knuckles said.

* * *

"We're losing." Knuckles said it out loud to himself, just to see if it sounded any more real that way. 

Inti was dead. His whole group had been wiped out. Nothing but a crater left of the building they'd been trying to secure as a forward base.

They'd grown up together. Inti had nearly become warband leader instead of him. Knuckles had always been quietly amazed that he'd never shown the slightest trace of resentment at having been beaten to it.

The latest attempt to use the Chaos Emeralds as an energy source for their rapidly depleting guardian robots had failed miserably and taken out most of the team working on it. There were only a handful of people left who had the first inkling of how it might be accomplished.

Tikal was missing. Knuckles had led the latest search party, expecting to find a body but they hadn't managed even that. He tried to tell himself that was because she was still alive somewhere but he didn't believe it. They'd found two of her escort, still carrying the medical supplies they'd gone for. Both killed by blaster fire.

If she'd escaped she'd have been back by now.

If she'd been captured they'd have heard by now.

She was dead. Knuckles knew it.

Pochacamac knew it too, Knuckles suspected, though no one had the nerve to speak it aloud in his presence. He'd barely been seen away from the Emerald team and showed no sign of outward grief other than the more taut lines of his face.

Someone tapped at the door to Knuckles quarters.

"Yes?"

Yaxha, one of the team working on the Emeralds entered. She looked as bone weary as Knuckles felt.

"What is it?"

"Pochacamac wants to see you."

_He wants to know what I found on the search_, Knuckles realised, dully._ Can I tell him I think his daughter's dead?_

He sighed and stood up. Yaxha followed him as he left the room.

"He's in the Emerald Chamber."

Knuckles restrained a snort. _The storeroom-cum-laboratory_ in other words.

Knuckles entered first. Pochacamac was standing with his back to them, bent over something set in the floor.

" Pochacamac," Knuckles said. "I'm here."

The seer turned.

"Knuckles. Thank you for coming." He leaned heavily on the spear he still carried and took a long breath. "Knuckles, we are losing this war."

Knuckles started to shake his head in denial, even though he had already reached the same conclusion.

"You know this," Pochacamac insisted. "Of all of us, you probably know this best. You have seen the battles every day. You know what the outcome must be."

"No!" Knuckles shook his head furiously. "We can't give up! Tikal said-" he choked on the name. "She told me, the future's not fixed. We can always change things. We have to keep fighting!"

"Not this time. I have found a way to control the Chaos Emeralds."

He moved aside from what he had been working on, and Knuckles gasped. The largest gem he'd ever seen sat glittering in a hollow in the floor.

"The Master Emerald," Pochacamac said. "With it the holder can control the power of all the others.

"But then--" If that was the case, Knuckles was at a lost for why this meeting was one of despair and not triumph.

"It is too late. We do not have the time to learn to use it. The Drakon will break into this base in the next few hours. That is not a seeing--it is a matter of tactical fact. If they claim this for their own then we will not merely be defeated, we will be annihilated, and the world with us."

Pochacamac looked steadily at Knuckles.

"I can use the same method Tikal used to bring Sonic here, to send this far into the future, out of reach of our enemies. But power of this magnitude will attract new enemies wherever in the world it goes. It requires a guardian "

Knuckles lowered his head. "This is it then. This is how it happens. I am to go with it."

Pochacamac regarded him steadily. "Tikal was correct, Knuckles. The future is not fixed. You do have the capacity to refuse."

* * *

"You must be joking," Sonic said, as Knuckles took off his boots. "We've got no idea if this is even it, or what else could be down there. You want to find the Island the same time some shark does? The plan was we check it out then come back with a sub." _If we can get one working_ he silently added. 

"In the time that takes, we could have checked half a dozen other sites." Knuckles was already on the outside of the boat's rail. "I'm just going to look."

He jumped.

Sonic threw up his hands and addressed the empty air where he'd been.

"Right. Fine. Get yourself killed then. Don't expect me to jump in after you, that's all."

He leaned over the rail then glanced anxiously up at Amy, standing by the cabin. She shrugged helplessly.

* * *

Knuckles shoulders' drooped. "And what if I _do_ refuse?" he asked. "You won't give this up will you? You'll find yourself another _volunteer_." The word soured in his mouth. "And what will you tell them? Will you tell them that they're agreeing to be flung away from everything they know? That they'll remember nothing of their life here?" 

Pochacamac shook his head. "We don't know that will happen. Nothing in the work we have done with the Emerald energy suggests such a thing. Sonic did not forget _then_ when he came _now_. It's not inherent to the process."

He continued. "A moment ago you yourself were arguing that the future is not fixed. You could walk out of here right now and prove it. So why believe that one detail is unavoidable?"

"Detail?" Knuckles snorted. "That's one big detail!" He slumped again. "I'm not sure that I _can_ walk out of here anyway. I am sworn to protect the city and its people, how could I stand and watch someone else do what I am afraid to?"

He straightened. "Make the preparations then. I will brief the captains on the defence to come, since I will not be here.

* * *

"How long has it been?" 

"About a minute and a half," Amy said.

Sonic paced the length of the boat. "Idiot."

"How long do you suppose he _can_ hold his breath?" Porker asked.

Amy shook her head. "I don't have any idea."

Sonic stopped and peered overboard once again. "Idiot!" he repeated.

* * *

The Master Emerald glowed wetly blue-green, and Knuckles tried not to think to hard about the eerie quality of the light. 

"So what do you want me to do?" he asked awkwardly.

"Nothing," Pochacamac said. "Remain still. Perhaps focusing your mind on your task would help avert the memory lost. Concentrate on that. You are Knuckles the echidna, once warrior in chief of Megaopolis, now Guardian of the Master Emerald. Remember."

Pochacamac flung out the arm holding his spear and energy leapt from the Master Emerald along the shaft and flew out towards where Knuckles stood, tense and waiting.

* * *

He felt as though he was being crushed by the water. He could barely see in front of his face it was so dark, this deep. 

_You really didn't think this through, did you, Knuckles?_, he thought to himself ruefully, as he kicked on and downwards. _Still you've come this far_. His fingers brushed stone and he squinted into the gloom. Not just stone. Smooth, dressed stone, in a sweeping curve. An archway.

If he hadn't been holding his breath, he'd have shouted in relief. Instead he twisted and kicked back towards the surface eager to alleviate the burning feeling in his chest.

* * *

He struggled to reach the air, gasping, choking on dust and dirt, scrabbling desperately to free himself from the rubble. He finally managed to free of the worst of it, and lay, half in and half out of the fallen chamber. He rubbed his head, dazed and blinked at the fallen stonework. 

What had happened? He couldn't remember. A sudden alarm swept over him as he realised he didn't remember anything else either. He forced himself back to a controlled calmness. Clearly he'd taken quite a blow on the head. He tried to think logically. He'd been in the Emerald chamber. He remembered that much. But why?

_It needs a Guardian._ A hazy voice came back to him. _You are Knuckles, the echidna, Guardian of the Master Emerald_. 

He shook his head trying to clear it. _Bad day when you don't even remember you own name, Knuckles._ He peered back into the chamber, rattled wits or not, he needed to get back in there and check it was safe. First things first. He was, after all, the Guardian.

* * *

Sonic leaned over to help pull Knuckles back on board. 

"Well?" Sonic asked. "Find anything worth busting your guts for?"

Knuckles nodded, still breathless. "It's down there."

"So _now_ can we come back with the sub?" Sonic asked, pointedly.

Knuckles nodded, stiffly, and walked back to the stern of the boat as Porker came about for shore. He sat looking back at the empty patch of sea, apparently impassive.

After a moment Sonic joined him.

"Uh, Knuckles?" he said awkwardly. "I need to talk to you about something."

"Talk to or talk at?"

"Huh?" Sonic blinked.

"Did Amy or Tails put you up to it?"

"What? Neither! Why?"

Knuckles shrugged. "Well in case you haven't noticed, they've both been shadowing me like sheepdogs ever since the Island went down." He paused. "Amy is more subtle."

Sonic snorted. "That's not the word I'd have picked."

"You underestimate her."

"Oh and you'd know--a crowbar over the head really counts as subtle." Sonic stopped abruptly, realising he'd spoken too hastily. Knuckles glowered at him and Sonic continued defensively, "Yeah, I know what happened up there. And I know why they're following you too--they're scared you're going to pitch your stupid self into the ocean, aren't they?"

Knuckles turned his back and returned to his contemplation of the sea.

"I am glad to know I'm not causing you similar anxiety."

Sonic sighed, this was exactly what he never seemed to be able to avoid. Every conversation with the echidna turned into a fight.

"Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I didn't think."

"I'm stunned and amazed," Knuckles said dryly.

Sonic spun on his heel to leave. _Fine! If he couldn't even accept an apology when he heard one, that was just--_

"You didn't tell me what you wanted to talk about."

Sonic paused, unable to tell from Knuckles' emotionless voice whether that was meant as challenge or overture. Sonic turned back, but Knuckles' face was equally unreadable.

Still, he wasn't likely to get a better chance.

"Um," Sonic started, suddenly at a loss. "Mind if I sit down for this?" He plonked himself on a crate without waiting for an answer and found himself staring at Knuckles' back. "Um--would _you_ mind sitting down for this?"

Knuckles turned around and leaned against the railing, hands folded across his chest. Apparently that was the closest he was going to get.

"Well." Sonic cast about for where to begin, then plunged ahead. "How much do you remember about how you ended up on the Floating Island?"

Knuckles' eyebrows shot up. "Oh this _is_ a heart-to-heart. Definitely Amy's idea, not Tails'--"

"Oh fine!" Sonic jumped back to his feet. "I should have known better than to try! If you don't want to listen then just--"

"I thought you were doing the listening," Knuckles said equably. "You're the one asking the questions, apparently."

Sonic shook his head impatiently and walked away.

"Nothing." Knuckles said flatly from behind him. Sonic stopped in mid-stomp for the second time. "I woke up. I knew my name, and that I was there to guard the Master Emerald. That's it. History of my life in one easy lesson. Not that I see what business it is of yours, hedgehog."

Sonic winced. Knuckles only called him that when he was really annoyed. Perhaps this hadn't been the best opening tack. Time to cut to the chase.

"It's my business because of what I saw when I disappeared from the fight with Chaos," he managed. "_Who_ I saw."

Knuckles stared at him silently, waiting for an explanation.

"The Great War, between your people and the Drakon Empire happened about 8000 years ago, right?"

Knuckles eyes' narrowed. "I didn't think history was your subject, Sonic."

Sonic let out a startled bark of a laugh at Knuckles' unintentional repetition of his own words.

"That's what I said!"

"Said to who?" Knuckles voice was growing dangerously impatient.

"Tikal."

Knuckles' annoyance was replaced by bafflement.

"I know that name."

Sonic started. Was it possible he somehow did remember, however distantly?

"I've seen it written down."

"She was the daughter of--" Sonic started to explain.

Knuckles snapped his fingers "Pochacamac. The leader at the time of the Great War. I read it in the histories. She was said to be a seer, able to look into the future." He paused, frowning suddenly. "What do you mean you said to her?"

"That's where I went," Sonic explained. "When I vanished. Tikal appeared and took me into the past with her. I saw where Chaos came from. I met Pochacamac." Knuckles was giving him a deeply sceptical look but Sonic pressed on. "And I met _you_ there."

Scepticism changed to outright contempt and Knuckles turned back to the railing. "That's not funny, even for your weird style of practical joking."

"It's not a joke, Knuckles. You were there. And somehow you were transported here. Or preserved or--"

"Like last years' fruit?" Knuckles asked, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "Go away, Sonic. I'm really not in the mood for games."

Whatever reaction Sonic had been expecting, disbelief wasn't it. He was too surprised to even be annoyed.

"I'm not fooling around, Knuckles. And I know what I saw. I spoke to him--err--you."

Knuckles turned and looked at him so long Sonic started to fidget.

"It's not possible," he said finally. Even if it was true--" Sonic bristled at the 'if' but Knuckles continued. "It couldn't be me. Maybe an ancestor or--"

"It was you."

"Well that's wonderful!" Knuckles' outburst was so unexpected that Sonic jumped back a pace. "Fantastic! So I'm supposed to believe that instead of forgetting a few years on an empty island, I've forgotten an entire _life_ _8000_ years ago? What good does that do me? What in all the skies am I supposed to do with that fascinating bit of information?"

"Don't shout at _me_!" Sonic yelled back. "I just thought you'd want to know! It's not my fault!"

Knuckles glared at him, but then deflated. "No. I don't suppose anyone happened to mention _why_ I made this little 8000 year excursion did they?"

Sonic shook his head.

Knuckles laughed sharply. "Of course not." He was silent a moment then spoke quietly. "Thank you for telling me."

"Knuckles--" Sonic wasn't certain what he wanted to say. "_Sorry your people dumped you and hopped it"_ didn't really seem appropriate, even if it was apparently true.

"Leave me alone, please."

Sonic nodded, almost relieved to have an exit, and left.

Amy, Porker, and Tails were waiting anxiously in the boats cabin.

"We heard shouting." Tails said.

"I assume he didn't take it entirely well?" Porker asked.

"It's bound to be something of a shock." Amy looked out of the window towards the stern. "Maybe I should go and see if he's okay."

"I don't think he wants company, Amy," Sonic said. "He already thinks you and Tails are babysitting him."

Amy blushed.

"Actually," Porker admitted, "the three of us have been taking turns. I guess he's more used to having me around."

"He's not used to having anyone around," Sonic said. "Not now."

* * *

Empty. 

The entire island. Or at least as much of it as Knuckles had been able to travel in--how long? He'd lost track. Maybe a week. Possibly as much as two.

Empty for a long while too, by the state of the buildings, the ruins, he'd seen.

He'd read the writings on the murals and parchments he'd found, but they told of a time as far removed as when the ruins had still stood. Was the reason they'd been allowed to fall one of the things he'd forgotten? Was the reason for the emptiness?

He walked to the edge of the Island. It had terrified him the first time he'd seen that sheer drop and it had been an act of defiance to stand on the brink and look over and not step back. Now he sat down on the springy turf, legs hanging over and watched the sun slip below the horizon of the world below.

Was it possible the whole planet was as empty as this island?

Perhaps he was a survivor of some calamity and this deserted place had been a final refuge. Or perhaps this was where it had started and the people had fled.

Perhaps the surface below teemed with the enemies he was guarding the Emerald against and this isolation was defence not accident.

Perhaps tomorrow or the next day or the week after that people would return, or a supply run or additional guards would arrive or a friend would visit. Perhaps this emptiness was explainable. Temporary.

Perhaps.

He would wait.

---END---


End file.
